New folk fabric design

Sometimes I make a new fabric design from the embers of some old designs and that's what I did last week when I created an American style folk fabric.

A few years ago I designed some Amish people cut & sew kits which I think I only sold one of, the idea was to make a family group and string them like bunting.

I took some of the design elements from the kits and worked out a pattern repeat and then picked a selection of muted colours for the range and these are my results.

I've already had some cotton samples back from print which I'm quite pleased with and I think this one will be nice for kitchen textiles, aprons, patchwork etc.

Another design just finished is a mish mash of lots of other elements, butterflies, embroidered flowers, vintage postage stamps. birds. I'm thinking Hawaiian shirts with this, maybe because the sun is shining on me today!

Northumbria - vintage shops, galleries, cafes and some purchases

I will finish off Northumbria with these snippets.

1. Boe Rigg, Bellingham. A groovy, retro place which is a camp site, self catering hay loft and a cafe. A very nice peaceful place to stop for a snack and they have some interesting local crafts for sale.

http://www.boerigg.co.uk/

2. Linda Lovatt Gallery, Jedburgh as previous post, this is a beautiful hare necklace I bought which Linda had made. I just love the packaging too, excellent presentation.

3. Barter Bookshop, Alnwick. A cross stitch book I bought, sometimes it's nice to do a non demanding craft like cross stitch.

4. Lindisfarne, produce. Walking from the car park to the village there were 2 local produce stalls, I bought these spuds which were delish, some honey also delish and the jam is unstarted.

5. Hawick, Lovat Mill, towards the end of the weeks trip I discovered a leaflet for the Textile Trail, if only I'd had it sooner to visit more wool and fabric places. Oh well, I made it to Lovat Mill, no website for them but you can go to the mill and a lovely lady dragged lots of small bits of tweed for me to look at and did me a good price by weighing them to price up. The tweed is all spun there and of course they do have full metreage to buy and blankets, scarves and clothing too.

6. Corbridge, lovely place for small indie shops. cafes, arty crafty stuff etc. Found this little Vintage shop with a beautifully presented selection of things, even some Hornsea pottery too. It's a small co-operative run by 3 ladies. I bought these vintage buttons, could've gone mad as they had a great stash of Liberty fabrics too.

And then this shop which I did go a bit mad with the photos as it had such a weird and wonderful collection of vintage, new, reclaimed etc. It's called RE and we have a web link for this one so if you want to go and buy a skeleton plate or a mug with the Yorkshire Wolds on this is the place for you!

http://www.re-foundobjects.com/

I had to control my purse in here so these are the few things I bought.

Now feast your eyes on some of the other displays, there's lots of haberdashery things, kitchen and garden. A very inspiring place for a mooch. 

Two vintage book style needlecases

Normal day to day design work has taken priority of late and I have a couple of interesting logo designs on the boil which I will reveal when they have been decided on and finalised.

In the meantime here are a couple of crafty things recently completed.
I do quite like making sewing needlecases and I've indulged in having some of my own books from when I was a toddler in the late 60's, printed onto fabric and stitched into a book style.

The first was a favourite fairy alphabet book. On the front cover the little fairy with the orange skirt at the left is Fairy Tinkerbell and as a long time believer in fairies, I used to have a fairy Tinkerbell who visited me as my tooth fairy.

Here are some inside shots.

The next needlecase is a kitten fairy tale book.

Here are the inside pages.

Some recent creations and vintage books

It seems I finally got the cooler weather I wanted which has made it a bit easier for working again. I have to say though that it is noticeable the nights drawing in, I'm sure it's dark half an hour earlier than mid July, lets leave the grim thoughts right there!

I ordered myself some of the mini cards from Moo which lead to some little handmade business card holders to house them. All are in the style of string tie envelopes.

We have a bright pink floral felt one

Green Harris Tweed

This one is some handloomed fabric from Skye Batiks

On the subject of fabric I have my ditsy floral butterfly fabric samples back from print and they are now listed in the Spoonflower marketplace. I need to order myself some for making things.

Did a couple of designs in Regency style, chintzy stripes.

Also popped a new colour of camping fabric into the mix as it seems to be selling quite well following the caravan cushion tutorial in Mollie Makes.

Something else I have recently completed was this embellished linen shirt.
This was inspired by a wonderful blouse my friend the textile artist Corinne Young had made. The last time I saw Corinne she was wearing an amazing creation made from upcycled vintage table cloths, it really did look lovely. I'm not very good at dressmaking so wouldn't even attempt a blouse, my quickie version was to take an old shirt and embellish the bits of tablecloth on to. This linen shirt worked well as most of my tablecloths were linen.

I quite like it but I have had the comment it looks a bit country and western, hey ho, brings out my inner Dolly Parton!!

This brings me round to some lovely old vintage childrens books of mine which I picked up last time I was at my parents. A bit fusty and musty now and with a few scribbles on the pages but there are some fond memories when I look at the illustrations.

One last vintage item, my mum dug this out for me, it was my very first craft apron as a child. Some friends brought it back from Wales for me. I might give it a new life and turn it into something.

Time to go and as this picture says.......